From a child's point of view, things often appear larger than they actually are. In most cases, when a child returns to their childhood home they find that the tree house they were so afraid of falling from was really only a few feet high. Or that their neighbor's bull dog was nothing more than a dusty old mutt that would rather lick itself in unmentionable areas than rip an innocent child's arm off.
At eight years old, this was not known to Sasuke as he looked up at the buildings of Konoha while he hurried along the busy streets, trying vainly to keep up with his brother's inconsiderate pace. Of course, Sasuke was unaware that his brother's pace was inconsiderate of his smaller legs. His brain happily chose to ignore that bit of information, just as it chose to ignore how the hand he held onto so happily, hung limp and uncaring in his tiny fingers. Instead, he distracted himself by babbling on contentedly to his brother about how much he wanted to be like him when he grew up, and how he'd bet that the older Uchiha could beat up anyone in the whole wide world. He also chose to ignore how his speech fell on deaf ears.
He hopped along the sidewalk next to his aniki, singing quietly to himself about how his mother would experience a horrible accident and somehow damage her back if he were to land on a crack in the concrete. He was happy today. Not only had his mother agreed to let him go into town with his aniki, but Itachi had also agreed to take him! Again, his childish mind chose to forget that the glorious answer he had received to his begging was a disinterested "Do as you want," as his brother made his way into the bathroom that morning.
Carefully scanning the ground for any breaks in the pavement, Sasuke continued to jump, pulling down on his brother's arm every time he landed. He was so dedicated to protecting his mother from danger that he didn't notice when his brother had stopped moving until he jumped forward and landed right in front of a stranger's knee. Gripping his aniki's hand a little tighter, Sasuke hurriedly scrambled back to hide behind the thirteen year old's leg. He'd never seen his brother's friends before.
Looking around, he saw where they had stopped; in front of a civilian cafe, in the middle of the sidewalk, with people walking all around them. The man that Sasuke had almost crashed into didn't even look down when the little boy nestled into his brother's side and wrapped his arms pitifully around the older boy's waist. In fact, the man didn't seem to be aware of anything at all as he stood in the middle of the sidewalk, looking bored even for a shinobi.
Sasuke decided that he didn't like this man much.
The other man meeting with his aniki was much nicer. Like the first man, he had focused his attention on his brother once the original Uchiha prodigy had come into view, but upon seeing how Sasuke retreated against him, turned a smile in the little boy's direction. This man seemed tall as a mountain to the small eight year old, and had a high ponytail that swished a little when his head moved. The man's skin was tanned, but as Sasuke smiled back up at him, he thought that the darker coloring didn't do very much to hide a scar that went neatly across his nose. Despite being groomed from the cradle on how to properly act in a stranger's presence, Sasuke's mother would have been horrified to know that her youngest son couldn't stop staring at the smiling man's scar for the life of him. Luckily, the tanned man didn't seem to mind much.
The man started to ask Sasuke something in the overly sweet tone of voice that most adults developed for the purpose of talking to smaller, less intelligent beings, but didn't receive an answer. Sasuke's short attention span quickly picked up the sound of an angry villager yelling, "YOU IDOIT! DO YOU WANT TO GET RUN OVER!"
Small head turning away from the scarred man, Sasuke's face lit up at the sight of someone his own age nearby. Yanking on his older brother's hand again, the youngest Uchiha cried happily, "Aniki, look! There's a boy lying in the street!"
Itachi's head moved without cutting off what he was saying to the first of his two "friends." Of course his eyes landed on the brightly colored form of the village's most hated annoyance, lying dumbly in the center of the street with an angry villager sitting in a horse drawn cart glowering over him and looking ready to kill. Why the village hated the blonde haired boy was not known to him yet, he supposed that it had something to do with the boy's mannerisms from what he had heard about the loud, immature prankster. However, Itachi also thought that this description could fit his brother to a lesser extent. Especially now, when he was trying to have a conversation.
Turing his attention to his younger brother, the older Uchiha didn't so much as blink as he matter-of-factly took a kunai from his weapons pouch and held it level with Sasuke's small head. He said, "Why don't you go see if you can decapitate him?"
Instantly his brother's face brightened, as he replied with, "I won't let you down, aniki!" Itachi inwardly flinched at his brother's enthusiasm as the boy snatched the weapon out of his hands and ran out into the busy street. Watching, Itachi could only mutter to himself that his little brother didn't even know how to hold a kunai properly.
When he turned back to the momentarily halted conversation, he found that during the brief exchange with his little brother, one of his companions had let his eyes double in size. After a short moment of staring, Iruka's mouth finally opened and let out, "You just gave an eight year old a kunai."
Itachi didn't flinch. "Yes, I did."
The recently appointed academy student-teacher looked franticly between the older Uchiha and the direction that Sasuke had run off in. "Y-You just gave an eight year old a sharpened kunai and told him to attack another child!"
Again, Itachi didn't so much as blink. He did, however, turn his attention to the third member of the small group, having decided that Iruka was temporarily caught up in babbling on about some strange nonsense.
Iruka turned to their third companion as well. "Did you just see what he did!" he asked, voice going a little louder in his scramble to find words to make the Jounin understand. "HE JUST GAVE AN EIGHT YEAR OLD A KUNAI AND TOLD HIM TO CUT SOMEONE'S HEAD OFF!"
Silence fallowed the statement.
When the addressed Jounin finally did speak, he cocked his head to one side, so that his one visible eye could stare directly at the younger ANBU captain. "He's right, Itachi." Kakashi said in a stern voice that made a smile of relief come onto Iruka's lips. "A shuriken is much better suited for decapitation."
"He needs the challenge," Itachi replied smoothly.
Kakashi snapped back with, "He's only eight."
Iruka's hands shot to his ears, not believing what he was hearing. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND!" he shouted, calling the attention of passing villagers. "HE JUST GAVE AN EIGHT YEAR OLD A KUNAI!"
Itachi, having been raised by a high power shinobi clan, merely looked at the brown haired man in confusion. Didn't all children use the blunt end of a kunai as a teething ring?
Kakashi, also the child of wack-job ninja parents, said simply, "I've never heard of decapitation by kunai."
Iruka's jaw dropped down once again, but instead of letting out sound, the poor, normal-minded ninja fainted before any words could come out. His two companions (Kakashi, mostly) had the courtesy to move him away from the feet of busy civilians who might not have noticed a shocked, unconscious Chuunin under their feet, then continued with their discussion on the methods one could use to remove their enemy's head.
A few feet away, forgotten by the two conscious members of the group, Sasuke looked around himself franticly. He had plunged into the street blindly after talking to his brother, and now found that in the traffic he had lost sight of his target. The mysterious boy, apparently having decided to take the angry villager's advice, had gotten up from his spot in the road. Now standing in the same place, the youngest Uchiha noted absently that he received a very different set of greetings than the blonde boy.
"Sasuke! How are you? How's that brother of yours..."
"Beautiful day to be out, isn't it?"
"I could just stand here and look at you all day long!"
The last comment, along with his promise to complete his mission, convinced Sasuke that he had to find his target again quickly. He couldn't imagine how disappointed his aniki would be if he returned without finishing his mission… and the man that had yelled out about watching him all day was leaning out of his carriage and smiling at him in a manner that made Sasuke's stomach twist.
Turning in a direction that led away from the man, Sasuke set off to find the blonde boy from the street. Unfortunately, he discovered that while he had entered the street, the horses and carriages had been moving in a direction that kept them from seeing his kunai. Now exiting the street, the traffic was moving opposite, anything with eyes had a perfect, dead-on view of a gleaming, well polished weapon clutched in an eight year olds hand.
He didn't know why so many people stared. Even the one man from the carriage gasped loudly when Sasuke began carelessly swinging his arm in a child-like way as he weeded his way to the sidewalk. A woman who passed by him too closely shrieked, but when he turned around to see what had happen he only found her busily dabbing at a ketchup stain on her sleeve. Some people were just slobs.
When he got out of the street, Sasuke could faintly see the top of his brother's friend's silver haired head across the street. Unable to see that the head was facing the opposite direction and fearing that his aniki might have been watching him, Sasuke hurried to dive into the nearest remotely crowded place, which just happened to be the same civilian park that, years later, a blue-black haired girl and a blonde boy would take refuge in after a surprise attack in an ally next to the Yamanaka flower shop.
Once inside, the child's bright smile returned in full when he saw a familiar figure stretched out on the grass. Fate was on his side! Running over to the other boy excitedly, Sasuke plopped himself down so that he had a knee on either side of his target's head. Just in case the other boy chose to make a run for it. Raising the hand that still clutched his brother's kunai, Sasuke held it above the blonde's head for a moment. Then, rethinking his positioning, he leaned forward so that it was somewhere above the boy's chest. He started to bring his arm back to make the attack, but frowned and again switched the weapon's position, leaning back so that it was directly over the tanned forehead.
He put his other hand around the blunt side of the kunai to help keep it steady, raised it a little higher... and stopped again. But this time it wasn't because of his confusion on were to make the attack. Instead it was because when he looked back down at the other boy, he noticed that the eyelids had opened to reveal two pretty blue eyes.
Sasuke's target looked at him curiously, then looked at the kunai, then back at him. For a moment Sasuke was scared that the other boy was about to get up and leave when he saw the hands bracing against the ground. To prevent that, he reached forward and put a pale white hand on the other's shoulder to push him back down. He raised his other hand to his mouth, dropping the kunai in the process when he stuck up one little finger and pressed it to his lips, albeit cutely. "It's okay, I'm here to decapi-sit-ate you!"
On a bench a short distance away, an elderly woman was feeding the pigeons when she turned and looked at the two boys with an odd expression on her face that went unnoticed.
The blonde blinked a few times, looked again between Sasuke and the kunai, and then smiled brightly. "OKAY!"
The old lady raised an eyebrow, but after recognizing who the little blonde boy was, turned back to feeding her pigeons with a muttered, "Good riddance."
Sasuke picked his weapon back up again and positioned it over the tanned forehead. He raised the kunai, but stopped yet again to brush the blonde's hair out of the way. It was pretty hair, he decided. He didn't want it to get hurt. Unfortunately, the second he repositioned his weapon, the uncooperative hair went back into place so that he had to stop to push it aside again. During both interruptions, the blonde's large, innocent eyes watched him intently.
When Sasuke stopped and put the kunai down for the third time, the blonde finally said in an irritated voice, "Do you even know what you're doing?"
Sasuke felt himself glare at the loudness of the other's voice. Didn't he know he was dealing with an Uchiha? "Of course I do!" Their eye locked in a battle of glares. Sasuke broke it first, by saying, "... You just gotta be asleep before I can do it."
Sasuke's statement was met by a confused blink and a long, "Ooooh…" Closing his eyes, the blonde said more quietly, "Okay, I'm asleep now."
Sasuke inwardly regretted the loss of the other boy's eyes, but didn't hesitate to snap back, "You can't talk when you're asleep."
He didn't receive an answer.
Experimentally, Sasuke poked his target in the cheek with one small white finger. He noticed six strange looking scars, but couldn't ask because that might have woken his target up again. Instead he raised the weapon, trying to decide just which part of the body he was supposed to attack, when...
"Sasuke?" the blonde asked from behind closed eyes. Thankful for the chance to stall for more time to think (though he would never admit it, not even if his aniki asked with pretty please with sugar on top!), Sasuke said, "Yeah?"
"What does 'decapita-tate' mean?" Sasuke started to smirk at the smaller boy, regretting again that the eyes weren't open for him to see it. He opened his mouth to respond, but found that once he did his mind drew a blank. The hand holding the kunai turned upward so that he could scratch lightly at his forehead with the sharp tip, thin red scraps coming from the innocent action. When the silence finally started to stretch for too long, Sasuke had only one thing to say. "...I dunno."
He wasn't sure what he expected as a response to his confession. Something loud at least, like a laugh or a shout, or insult (though he didn't stop to think of why he would expect anything from a boy he just saw on the street at random). Instead, the tanned face of Konoha's future loudest ninja stayed relaxed and blank, as if in sleep. And for some reason, that made the dark haired eight year old angrier than taunting would have (he was a genius, after all! His blunders were not to be taken as everyday occurrences!). With the kunai in hand, the youngest Uchiha reached out and jabbed the blonde, albeit painfully, on the shoulder. "Hey," scoffed out angrily, "wake up!"
The blonde stayed still, though Sasuke knew that the kunai should have at the very least made the other boy wince. He leaned farther over the boy, bracing his hands on either side of his midsection so he could frown directly into the peaceful face. When a minute passed and still there was no sign of life from the blonde, he lowered himself down closer to his face to check for breathing the way his aniki said he had to do at the end of every assignation.
He was completely surprised when the blonde's eyes snapped open suddenly, and narrowed. Sasuke threw himself back into his former sitting position, ready to snap at the other boy for ignoring him, when he looked up and was pinned with a cold glare…
A cold, white eyed glare.
The Uchiha child scrambled farther back. He felt his body clench when the other child began to stand up and change shape. His body grew years during the brief movement, becoming larger and stronger. Sasuke looked to his side quickly and discovered that his kunai was missing, though he didn't remember dropping it.
As the man started toward him, Sasuke watched in horror as his features continued to change. The short, bouncy blonde locks became thicker and fell smoothly around his face as they stained black from the root to tip, as if someone had poured ink over the blonde's head. The tan-bronze color of the other boy's skin changed too, fading paler and paler... until he was staring at an obvious member of the Hyuuga clan.
And then, Sasuke noted, he found out what happened to his kunai. Hyuuga Naruto had it clenched tightly in his hand when he stopped walking directly in front of the still eight year old Uchiha. The glare hadn't left his face. If anything it became more hateful as the man aimed the weapon with a calculated stare, brought his arm back for the throw.
Sasuke discovered that he couldn't even scream as he watched the shining metal tip move through the air. He could feel it building in his throat, but his mouth just wouldn't open. Like it was sewn shut. Or glued. He just sat still as the weapon came closer, and closer...
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In the total darkness of a windowless room, a pair of black eyes suddenly shot open. Under the sheets, Sasuke's body was still tense, fighting the urge to throw itself to the side just in case the kunai somehow managed to follow him into the waking world. And because of the darkness of his room, he couldn't even stare at the ceiling as he listened to his breathing calm back down. Not that it mattered really; his mind was still occupied with the image of angry white eyes in a normally happy-go-lucky face.
Sitting up, Sasuke let his legs slide out from under the blanket. Waking up in the middle of the night was no longer a new experience to him. From his earlier experiences with the aftermath of unnerving dreams, Sasuke already knew that he wasn't going to get back to sleep again without a little help. Over the last month he had taken to keeping a little bottle of sleeping pills on his nightstand for getting his consciousness sedated after having dreams that he'd... rather not think about.
Sasuke picked up the bottle and exited his room robotically, heading for the kitchen. He already knew the instructions on the bottle clearly said not to take them on an empty stomach, and unlike the dobe, he wasn't stupid enough to ignore warning labels when drugging himself. Normally, the idea of taking any kind of medication that was not absolutely necessary made him uncomfortable, ever since what had happened when he took Orochimaru's chakra pills and almost killed his teammate when he woke up. But that was another incident that he really didn't like to think about.
Opening his pantry door, Sasuke paused for a moment to wonder just what the hell had happened to his sense of taste as he looked over shelf upon shelf stocked with different brands and flavors of the same food. A food that just happened to be a certain blonde's favorite. Sasuke supposed that, if nothing else, he could always lure Naruto into his apartment with the promise of all the ramen noodles he could eat, and then lock him up until his relationship with Hyuuga Hinata died out of lack of contact. That was plan Z.
Sasuke selected an instant cup of pork ramen off a shelf, and then turned to start boiling the water to mix it with.
He hadn't given up on his decision about the Hyuuga girl. He was not about to lose his dobe to anyone, much less a meek, pampered, pathetic excuse for a kunoichi that would likely let the blonde become soft and utterly useless as a rival by the time they broke up (the idea of the Hyuuga hussy marrying Naruto was not even going to be given the honor of being considered a possibility). He had only gotten sidetracked in his first attempt at breaking the two up, and the only reason why he hadn't made a second one yet was because he had been shocked. And then when he had calmed down, right when he was about to make another move, he started experiencing a few distractions. The dreams were the worst, in Sasuke's opinion. When they had begun was a mystery, because he had often relived memories while he slept in the place of dreams, but usually they were about battles and his clan. Then out of the blue it had switched to the dobe... and his first girl kiss. He'd probably relived it so many times by now that he could describe it more accurately than either of the participants (A/N: And in his opinion, he was by far the better first kiss). Then the dreams had moved a little farther into his memories, going into... he still wasn't going to think about that night.
Then his subconscious got a little more creative, and then the nightmares...Under different circumstances, Sasuke might have been grateful that his rival's mind was too distracted to notice Sasuke's rapidly faltering performance at training. Or the fact that he couldn't really make eye contact...
Might, being a word he stressed in that thought. He fiercely blamed the entire situation on the Hyuuga girl. No, scratch that. He blamed the entire fucking Hyuuga family. If Neji could have just kept his damned mouth shut, Naruto would never have even noticed that the Hyuuga heir practically got a nose bled every time he spoke to her. Or if the branch house member could have been a little more accurate in his attempt to murder the girl...Or if Hiashi could have kept his hands to himself one night a decade and a half ago, Hinata would be nothing more than a forgotten red stain on an old bed sheet, and Sasuke would still have a rival!
When Sasuke ripped the top off the instant ramen cup, he was only mildly surprised when his hand threw the innocent cap across the room. The bubbling water seemed to hiss at him as he poured it into the cup, small droplets bouncing up and trying to burn his hands.
Kakashi hadn't confronted him yet, but Sasuke was sure that between the lack of sleep and the trouble concentrating in his blonde teammate's presence, the situation was beginning to take a toll on his performance. Not that he was alone, but Naruto screwing up wasn't unusual. He was an Uchiha, damnit! He wanted to get Naruto's attention back on him before they became weak and ended up spending yet another year as Genin.
As Sasuke tore open the little bag of seasonings and mixed it into the dobe's favorite food, he looked over his last thought again. Mentally, he crossed it out and wrote Who are you kidding? in bright red marker.
He ate the noodles slowly, automatically remembering that it was the same flavor Naruto had had before he came to his apartment that night with the destined to fail plan. Only it lacked the extra, intoxicating flavor that it had when he tasted it from his teammate's mouth.
The fact that he had been stupid enough to convince himself that he could drive Konoha's most attention-starved ninja away by lathering him with it was enough to convince him of his own stupidity. How long had he been fooling himself? He didn't want Naruto's love life to be shot. He didn't even hate Hinata.
He just wanted the dobe for himself…
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Hinata took a deep breath before raising her hand and sending it toward the door in front of her. Her white knuckles were almost within an inch of the door's surface, when she abruptly jerked them back, nestling the hand in the fabric of her shirt as if they had been burned. Inwardly, she let out a groan of frustration. She wanted to stamp her foot at herself. She had been standing in the same spot all morning, trying to coax her hand into knocking on the door of her mentor's hospital office.
She knew that she wasn't supposed to ask her tutor for help during her exams, but tonight she had really found something that she just couldn't figure out.
"Hinata?"
The white eyed girl addressed jumped at the sound of her name, just barely managing to keep herself from letting out a startled "Ahhh!"
Beside her, she heard a surprised gasp, and then a hand closed firmly over her shoulder. "Hinata? Miss? Forgive me, I didn't mean to frighten you, I only wanted to ask if you wanted to see the Hokage."
Hinata was silent for a moment while her lungs took in a soothing breath and when she was finally able to turn her head to face the Hokage's sweet mannered assistant, she felt her face heat up in embarrassment. She must have been so focused on her progressed toward knocking on the door that she didn't notice the dark haired woman's approach.
Shizune smiled comfortingly at her, and said in a mildly amused voice, "You've been standing here at least twenty minutes."
Again, Hinata felt her face heat up. She wasn't sure if she wanted to correct the woman and tell her that she had come running to the Hokage's private office hours ago. She knew that she had to have made yet another disappointing mistake and her teacher would have to guide her out of it. Returning her attention to Shizune, Hinata nodded her head and watched enviously as the woman opened the door with a confidence that made her inwardly sigh. Shizune didn't even need to knock!
Light came into the room only after Shizune moved aside the heavy drapes covering the windows. Tsunade often tried to pretend it was night when ever she managed to get away from her duties, she explained, it made going to sleep easier.
Still, the kind woman's explanation didn't sooth Hinata's embarrassment at seeing her teacher slumped forward onto her desk, with her head pillowed on her arms. Shizune, on seeing the same sight, just made a soft sounding sigh and motioned for Hinata to wait a moment. Hinata raised her eyebrows in curiosity as the medical assistant approached the desk, hands folded neatly in front of her.
"Tsunade-sama?" Shizune shook the Hokage's shoulders lightly, but was only rewarded with a light groan as the blonde haired woman shifted into a more comfortable position.
Hinata's flush didn't go away.
"She was up late," Shizune tried to offer as an excuse, even while she was busy attacking her employer with both hands. "Civilians," she said with a quick smile, "seem to love injuring themselves after ten PM." The woman let a small frown of irritation flicker across her face as she was forced to give up shaking the Hokage when the blonde haired woman absented flicked a hand at her as if she were a fly. The assistant had to muffle a yelp as her employer's more than average strength pushed her back against the wall. She returned in a second, the expression Hinata had seen coming and leaving her face as she went in for a second attempt. Lifting up a generous sized lock of brandy colored hair, she continued to speak to Hinata over her shoulder. "There was this one girl that came in around eleven last night," she tugged viciously on the hair, falling back when several of the silky strands snapped. The rest of her hold slipped from her hand.
The Hokage was undisturbed.
"Somehow, she managed to stab herself in the ear," the assistant said calmly, though she was looking at the long, glossy strands in her hand with dread. A woman that used a jutsu to hide her real age had to be given to vanity, right? Hastily, Shizune stuffed the hairs into the puppy-dog pouch worn on the front of her shirt, and carefully arranged her boss's hair until she found the other woman's ear. She went on speaking, "With a necklace clasp." The dark haired woman took a firm hold of Tsunade's ear. "Her mother was furious when she brought her in, and the girl was only six, so you can imagine how hard it was to calm her down." (1)
Hinata nodded politely to the older woman's story, though her attention was more focused on her attempts to wake the Hokage. She was about to offer her help when Shizune braced her free hand on the blonde's head to keep it in place when she ruthlessly pulled the ear in the opposite direction.
"And believe me when I say it bled! I don't think some ninjas can do so much damage with only-"
The Hokage's head shot upward, slamming into the back of her overstuffed leather chair with a force that surprised Hinata. It didn't break the headrest! One of the woman's hands flew to the side of her head where Shizune had let go of her ear. Then the most respected ninja in Konoha let out a loud, wordless shriek of irritation and pain as she promptly fired a blazing glare at whatever was dead ahead of her.
...Which happened to be Hinata.
The white eyed girl cringed under the amber gaze, the memory of what she had come to ask the mad woman returning to her all too suddenly. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the shout that she saw bubbling in her teacher's eyes. When it wasn't aimed at her, she tried to coax her jaw into unclenching, just a little. It didn't work.
"Shizune!"
"Good morning, Tsunade-sama," the assistant chirped. She put her hands innocently behind her back and smiled warmly at her employer. "You have a visitor."
Tsunade glowered at her innocent looking assistant, but relented to turning her head in the direction that Shizune nodded to. When she saw the smaller dark haired girl standing in front of her desk a second time (or first, since she hadn't really taken notice when she was glaring), she felt a growl start up in her throat. To her credit though, she did try to make it a soft growl. "Yes, Hinata?" she said in a voice that barely covered her lack of enthusiasm at her student's presence.
As a pupil, the Hyuuga girl had been quiet, watchful, and intelligent. And as Naruto's girlfriend, she had been absolutely adorable with her shy manner. But then she had to start her exam... And Tsunade abruptly decided that, girlfriend or not, she was a fucking pain in the neck that could rival the loudmouth blonde. This was discovered when the girl began showing up in her office every single day with a mundane question that they both knew she already knew the answer to.
Tsunade would readily admit that the future Hyuuga clan head was brilliant. If the girl actually had self-esteem, Tsunade might have thought she would even make her father proud.
"G-Good morning, Hokage-sama," the girl stuttered with her eyes cast to the floor. Hinata fought the urge to play with her hands. She had to be serious about this with Tsunade-sama!
"What is it today, Hinata?" the Hokage asked.
Hinata was too relieved that she had been given a way to get right to the problem to notice the annoyed tone in the blonde woman's voice. She took a moment after taking a breath and opening her mouth to speak. Then shut it. How does one answer such an informal question given by the highest officed ninja in their village?
Tsunade was impatient. The blonde woman breathed another sigh, and again voiced her question, "What do you need help with today?"
This time Hinata wasn't able to get around the annoyance. "H-Hai," Hinata said, then mentally slapped herself. That didn't go with the Hokage's question! "I-I, um, I was working on m-my t-test, the one with Uchiha Sasuke's s-samples, and th-they came out funny."
Hinata didn't look at her teacher directly, but she did manage to hear Tsunade through the mental cursing she was doing in her own head. Could she have managed to sound anymore like a child? "Funny?"
"H-Hai." Hinata's face changed from white to red, skipping over the middle pink. "I-It was the urine test, a-and I looked at the t-text book, and th-the results..."
"Did you check the color?" Tsunade said, trying to make the session easier, as well as faster, for her timid pupil. The girl nodded, her face staying the same shade of red. "The odor?"
Another nod. "I-I...They came out...I mean, they shouldn't have..."
Tsunade's assistant had long since escaped to her own private corner of the office, leaving her employer to sit and try to understand the girl's words through her stutters and her own frustration. Why couldn't the girl just say what was wrong with the sample? It was now obvious to Tsunade why Naruto and Hinata made such a good couple. If they got married, the girl wouldn't have to say a single word for the rest of her life.
"I went to the maternity wing and got an expectancy test, j-just to be sure..."
Tsunade's attention snapped back into place at that sentence. "You used a pregnancy test on Uchiha Sasuke's urine?"
Hinata nodded sheepishly. She tried to explain, "I-I wanted to make s-sure about what th-the text said-"
The blonde woman behind the desk threw her head into her hand, waving aside Hinata's words with the other. "Fine, fine, Hinata. What did it say?"
This was where Hinata faltered. She bit her lip, feeling her forehead crinkle as she imagined what her teacher was going to say at her response. "I-I th-think I lost m-my s-samples, Tsunade-sama!"
Tsunade put the hand covering her eyes back onto the desk and raised her head to stare at the girl in what she knew must have been an exasperated way. If her father hadn't been the head of a very powerful clan, she might have screamed at the girl. Instead, she took a calming breath and said, "You and Sakura were given a private room to perform your exams in. Every morning that room is unlocked when you arrive, and locked again the second you leave. No one, I repeat, no one has touched your samples other than you, Hinata." She waited a moment with the girl's fingers furiously trying to strangle one another as the Hyuuga heir's red face stayed angled at the floor. When she gave up hope of a willing response, she said in a slightly harsher tone, "What was the test's result?"
"It… it agrees with the text, Hokage-sama." The girl didn't raise her head, and seemed to take a second to realize that she had not told her mentor what had been wrong with the text's assessment of the urine in the first place. She mentally thought You baka! Hands suddenly clamping down on each other in a death-white grip, the girl said in a fast voice, "It turned blue." (2)
(1) --; that happened to me once, only I was fourteen and spent half an hour walking around not knowing my ear was bleeding. I'm just telling ya'll so you know it's not as random as it sounds...
(2) Everyone knows that's the normal positive answer for a pregnancy test, right? I looked around in the store and they had all these weird kinds that had lines, and x's and o's, so I thought I should make sure everyone knew...
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Naruto gazed up at the buildings of Konoha with a pleasant smile on his face. He was currently walking in a part of town that he didn't visit very often own his own. Since it wasn't an area that he frequented, he didn't play as many of his pranks there and therefore wasn't as easily recognized, and received fewer glares on the street. Of course, there was still the odd person who recognized him right away and would lean to one side to whisper to their friends, but for the most part Naruto was left alone. And because of that, he decided that he liked this part of the village. There was still a problem with the place lacking a decent priced ramen stand, but that was something that he could fix after he became Hokage. Or, if he were really serious about liking this part of the village, ramble on and on about to Tsunade until she relented and had a new stand opened.
Naruto's foxy grin grew in size when he saw a woman smile as he walked by. So what if she might have actually been smiling at someone behind him or across the street? She had a little boy with her who, Naruto was sure, definitely smiled at him. Yep, this was definitely a good part of the village. Naruto could just block out the reason that he was there, and everything would be perfect...
"Dunce!" Naruto stopped in mid-stride and quickly turned around, eyes darting from person to person, and the word "Teme!" ready on his lips for when his eyes fell on an arrogant, black haired Genin. But, of course, Sasuke was nowhere to be found.
"Mama, Mama! Tai won't stop teasing me!"
"It's not my fault you're such a dunce, dunce!"
Naruto let himself relax a little when he saw the two children crowded around their mother at a nearby bench. He started to walk away, but the sound of the larger child's teasing carried over to him.
"Dunce! DUnce! DUNce! DUNCe! DUNCE!" ...So much for ignoring why he was walking down a street in the richer part of Konoha.
As the boy's chant, which persistently followed him after the children's mother stood up and started walking down the street behind him, steadily worked the blonde into a glare, Naruto began to curse the boy whose fault it was that he was there. It was hardly a secret in Konoha that one of the most common sources of his outbursts was seeing attention and care lavished on the Uchiha that would not be offered to anyone else under the same conditions. Like himself for instance. He was sure that when he slept in, his pink haired teammate did not jump up nervously and call out his name at every little sound made near their meeting place. Or demand that their sensei send someone to check on him to see if he was okay. He was also certain that the silver haired Jounin didn't spend five minutes carefully thinking over the request before finally agreeing (though he couldn't be sure because, naturally, when he was late he was not at the bridge to see any displays of concern). And finally, he was absolutely positive that his pink haired teammate never suddenly developed fangs and a banshee's scream when their teacher appointed his rival to be the one to go get him out of bed.
Naruto couldn't understand how Kakashi was able to withstand the kunoichi's threats, or the thought of being alone with her until he got back with the favored Uchiha in toe. He personally was ready to join in with his teammate and demand that the pink haired girl be sent instead, if only to relax in the knowledge that Inner Sakura would be once again confined to being only Inner Sakura. Unfortunately, at the last minute a messenger arrived from the hospital asking for Sakura and Sasuke to report to the Hokage as soon as possible, together or not.
So Naruto was stuck with the task of scraping his rival out of bed and dragging him down to the hospital. He used the word "scraping" because this hadn't been the first time his rival had been uncharacteristically late, and as Naruto had learned, the Uchiha was an incredibly deep sleeper. The last time he had been late, Naruto had considered going outside and breaking into the blasted apartment and screaming right into his rival's ear.
Unfortunately for him, Sasuke had suddenly woken up and caught him outside his bathroom window. Considering that Sasuke had been in the act of getting ready to take a shower, that incident had been particularly hard to explain after the half naked Uchiha hand reached out his window to grab the blonde before he could fall three stories and splatter on the sidewalk. Sasuke said his landlord wouldn't appreciate that.
Coming to a stop outside the building that Naruto knew Sasuke lived in, he took a minute to renew his glare and angle it at the electronic box outside the entrance doors. He knew the code, having learned it after the bathroom incident when Sasuke for some reason decided to be nice and save him the trouble of climbing up his apartment building whenever the door buzzer failed to wake him up; the glare was more for the fact that the box represented just how much nicer the bastard's building was than his own. He punched in the code and quickly went into the lemon scented, air conditioned lobby, glare staying on his face.
Stupid, rich bastard...
Given Sasuke's dislike for all things non-ninja, Naruto couldn't understand why the Uchiha heir would move into a building with a civilian security system. It wasn't like it could really help him if another ninja seriously wanted to attack him at home. However, the blonde already knew what the answer to asking would be: nothing.
Inside the bastard's elevator, Naruto grumbled to himself again. His apartment building didn't have music. Annoying elevator music, Naruto insisted to himself, but nonetheless, it was another jab at the fact that living alone could be so much nicer if one had a shit load of money left over from their family. When he became Hokage, he was going to find someone to invent portable elevators so that everyone could have their own, and... NO! His foot was NOT just tapping to the rhythm!
When the doors opened on the third floor, Naruto sprang out of the elevator. At first it had just been out of frustration at the catchy -no, annoying music, but after entering the hall, the blonde decided to keep it up. He wanted to get this done with quickly, anyway. While turning a corner, Naruto came to the sudden discovery that the music was not just in the elevator. There were speakers hidden along the hall so visitors could hear it as they walked around in the building. Damnit! Someone was taunting him!
He looked up, trying to find out just were exactly the speakers were hidden, not paying attention to where he was going as he turned the last corner, when...
WHAM!
...Konoha's number one loudmouth crashed right into his teammate's door. Loudly.
He looked around himself quickly, hoping that no one had heard. Pulling away from the door, Naruto waiting for it to be opened, thinking that it would just be his luck that his rival was right on the other side and somehow magically saw him run straight into his front door. But of course, that would have been the old, smart Sasuke. The new sleep-in-until-Kami-knows-when Sasuke apparently didn't know that he was supposed to find someway to be present at every one of his blunders.
After waiting a minute just to be sure, Naruto knocked on the door again. Not as loudly without the weight of his full body slamming into the wood, but he made up for it by shouting his teammate's name. One thing he'd learned was he couldn't be too thorough in trying to wake the Uchiha heir up.
However, it was a common known fact in Konoha that its favorite little loudmouthed demon holder was far from blessed when it came to his temper. Thus, it was completely understandable to anyone who had the privilege of working with the blonde at any point during his or her life, that when the Uchiha's door continued to go unanswered after knocking several times, the blonde opted for something that came a little easier to him. Spaztastic violence.
Drawing his fist back, Naruto began to mercilessly pound on the door, grinning inwardly when he thought that he might end up leaving dents in Mr. Rich-Asshole's pretty red door. Three minutes into this (he had more patience when he was expending energy), Naruto thought he heard someone's footsteps in the corridor behind him. Immediately he turned around, so not to look like his was trying to break into Konoha's most beloved rookie's home, just in time to see an old lady casting him a confused stare as she walked down the hall with a paper bag filled to the brim with large boxes of pigeon fed.
The corridor was completely silent until the woman, staring unashamedly at the blonde haired shinobi, unlocked the door across from Sasuke's and went inside.
Turning back to the offending door, Naruto started to fire another punch at it, when a pale hand snaked out and firmly caught his fist before it could land on the mockingly cheerful red surface.
"What are you doing, dobe?"
Naruto paused. Mostly because it took him a minute to follow the arm connected with the pale hand and find the gap between the door and its frame, where it came from. Looking through the gap, Naruto could see one black eye staring lazily out at him with a thin metal chain, the kind that civilians used to lock their doors, taunt and level with an elegant nose.
"Morning, asshole," Naruto ground out as he tried to jerk his fist back from the Uchiha. Unfortunately, the paler boy didn't seem to notice. A silence stretched between them, in which Naruto was painfully aware of the fact that his teammate was watching every move he made while he could only see a sliver of the dark haired boy's face. And being Konoha's number one loudmouth, he of course knew that he was expected to break the silence first. "Where were you today? Sakura tried to tear her own lungs out when Kakashi got to the bridge before you. And-"
"I was at home, baka." Sasuke cut in without showing any acknowledgement to the blonde's other sentence, the tone of his voice saying Isn't-It-Obvious? "I'm sick."
Uchiha Sasuke was never one to admit weakness easily. The only time that either of his teammates could really claim to have seen him drop his macho attitude was once during their Chuunin exams, during their first fight against Orochimaru. Since then, anyone with normal intelligence would have noticed the Uchiha's redoubled efforts to hide weakness. Admitting to anything that would damage his man-of-steel persona was a rare sign that the boy wanted to end the conversation and be left alone until the problem was fixed.
Unfortunately, it was debatable whether Uzumaki Naruto could be listed under "normal intelligence." Crossing his arms, the blonde demanded, "Well, what'd you got?"
The one visible eye narrowed. "Nothing. I'm just not feeling well."
"What do you mean you just don't feel good? You've been sick twice this week!" Naruto began tapping his foot while waiting for the boy behind the door to snap back at him. This was after all, as good as a sparring match between them. If Gai and Kakashi could count rock-paper-scissor matches in their fifty-victories, forty-nine-loses, then Naruto and Sasuke could certainly count arguments. However, when Naruto's rival didn't say anything in response, he turned his head to the side, slightly disappointed at the easy victory. "You should at least check with a doctor."
There was a sneer from the other side of the door. "Your girlfriend already examined me." Another invitation to start an argument, only this time the subject was a little more personal on the blonde's part. He'd gone over it in his head more than once, and still Naruto could not figure out why his teammate hated Hinata as much as he clearly did. At one point he had thought about the possibility of it being mutual, but he honestly had a hard time seeing his white-eyed girlfriend hating anyone, even a selfish, show-offy bastard like Sasuke...
Realizing that he had zoned out of the present, Naruto snapped back to attention. "Bastard. Just get out here so we can leave already."
No answer.
"I'll even kick your ass later if you want, just open the door."
The dark haired boy, who had apparently decided that he wanted to fulfill a secret life long dream of becoming a statue, just continued to stare blankly at the blonde. Naruto glared in return, trying to think of just what he was supposed to do with an unresponsive Uchiha. There was always the bathroom window...
On the other side of the door, the pale skinned boy drew his head away from the door with a smirk on his lips. Naruto, too occupied with glaring and trying to put together a plan of action, didn't notice. Sasuke, of course, had already predicted what his target was going to come up with, and carefully eased the door back into its frame so that he could unhook the chain without the dobe noticing.
When he saw the blonde pulling back his fist like he had earlier, he inwardly nodded his approval as his hand gripped the doorknob tightly in anticipation.
Naruto let his fist swing forward, expecting to feel the impact of cool paint on wood against his fist. Not having the Hyuuga eyes to assist him, he hadn't seen the smirk or the preparations that his rival made on his side of the door. He honestly hadn't even noticed that the gap they had been talking through had closed. He did manage to think a quick "What the!" when he saw the door swing open suddenly, and felt a hand close around his wrist. Before he could even draw breath to shout at his teammate that it was about time, he was jerked forward, his balance breaking and sending him to sprawl out on Uchiha Sasuke's living room floor, while behind him he heard the distinct sound of a door being thrown shut. He rolled over, just in time to see Sasuke hook the civilian chain back in place.
"Asshole," the blonde growled while forcing himself into a sitting position. He rubbed lavishly at his chin, mumbling about how he was going to make Sasuke pay if he broke anything and about the ramen he was going to expect afterward if he did.
"Couldn't let you stand out there and annoy my neighbors, dobe." The Uchiha smirked as he watched the blonde grumble while getting to his feet. Naruto tried to glare at him, but the effect was far less threatening on the rumpled blonde than it would have been on the raven haired boy receiving it. Sasuke personally thought the way Naruto's bottom lip pouted out ever-so-slightly when he tried to look menacing actually made him look more like an adorable kid getting ready for his first playground fight.
Of course, he wasn't about to say that.
Turning around, Sasuke left the blonde standing in the middle of his living room, while he went into the hallway without a word. Naruto didn't waste a moment in yelling, "Where do you think you're going, teme!"
Naruto could almost hear the arrogant smirk on his rival's face when he said, "Back to bed, dobe. I'm tired."
Naruto started towards the hallway, intending to catch up with his teammate. "You can't go to sleep!" He started to say, but drifted off somewhere around the word "to."
The first door in Sasuke's hallway went right into his kitchen. Naruto paused in mid stride, forehead already crinkling when he smelled something that was very, very familiar. Turning his head, the blonde froze. Sasuke being the perfectionist that he was on missions, Naruto had always figured him for a neat freak too, but that theory was shot down, castrated, chopped into little bit-sized pieces and then burned for good measure when Naruto stared in wide eyed astonishment at the Uchiha's kitchen.
There were pots left out on the counter, some even still resting on the cold stove because of lack of room anywhere else. A quick look at the sink revealed that it was filled to the point of overflowing with carelessly stacked half empty bowls. And, as Naruto took a step into the room for a closer look, he noted that the crusty residue that the broth of cheaper (and tastier) brands of instant ramen left when it dried was present on the glossy bowls. Sasuke wasn't even bothering to rinse out his dishes! What had happened to the Uchiha's eating utensils was a mystery until the blonde began to turn around to exit the room and spotted the trash can -not a tiny little waste basket but an actual CAN- standing in the corner, and saw that the wooden disposable kind of chop sticks were poking up out of the plastic bag.
Guess living in a fancy apartment doesn't include having a maid. Naruto knew that no one in their right mind would call his kitchen spotless, but THIS... Sasuke should consider inviting his fangirls over for dinner. If standing in this room didn't scare them off, nothing would.
A soft click from down the hall broke Naruto out of his temporary trance. Just in time too, he loved ramen, and seeing it come to this state was just... sickening. Turning back to go down the hallway, Naruto followed the barely audible sound of bed springs creaking as if someone were rolling over, until he came to a plain white door at the end of the hall. He took the doorknob in his hand, twisted, pushed, and looked in on... nothing. Inside the room it was completely and totally dark, despite the perfectly sunny mid-morning light outside.
He tried to adjust to the lack of light by squinting, though, he didn't know if that would help if there was no light in the room for his eyes to adjust to, when his rival's voice cut through the darkness for him. "Light switch is on the wall, dobe."
"Shut up, teme..." even with the instructions, Naruto still took a moment of blind fumbling before he was able to locate the light switch. The first thing that the blonde's eyes landed on once the room became more than just a black space, was a neatly stacked pyramid next to the Uchiha heir's bed. A pyramid made entirely out of instant ramen cups. After the kitchen, the ramen shouldn't have been such a surprise, and after all, he had some in his own room too. But he never let the empty cups stick around long enough to build a monument that high!
After getting over the shock of yet another sign that his teammate was secretly a fellow ramen-freak, Naruto spent a moment debating whether or not the raven haired boy was one to set traps in his room, remembered the useless civilian chain-lock on his door, and went in.
Sasuke was lying on his side, face to the wall. Naruto could hear his steady breathing as he approached, and worried that maybe his teammate really had been tired and fell asleep. How long does it take someone to do that anyway?
Another thing that anyone would know about Naruto was that he was loud. That was even one of his nicknames: loudmouth. And when one is put into a room with their sleep deprived rival, knowing that they must get them out of bed one way or another, it doesn't take a cloud-gazing lazy-assed genius to figure out what he's going to do. Coming to a stop beside the bed, Naruto reached out carefully with one hand to pull back Sasuke's blanket so he could yell into the paler boy's ear. But Sasuke, being a former number one rookie and a longtime teammate of the blonde's, knew better than to make certain mistakes, like say, falling asleep in the same room as Konoha's number one loudmouth. Thus, for the third time that morning, a pale hand sprang forward at the last second and firmly grabbed hold of Naruto.
Unsuspecting and less than well balanced to begin with, Naruto fell easily forward until he had to chose between sprawling across his teammate and his bed, or crashing head first into the wall. Then Sasuke wasn't lying down anymore. Naruto scrambled to get off his teammate, or at least get into a sitting position that didn't put all of his weight on Sasuke, but was easily stopped by the dark haired boy. Sasuke hadn't been caught by surprise, and he had the advantage of having better leverage when he caught both of Naruto's hands in a steel-like grip.
Well, at least Naruto could be glad that Sasuke's fangirls weren't here to see this. He still clearly remembered being chased half way across the village for a mere accidental kiss, and really did not want to know what would happen if Sakura or Ino walked in and saw him laying in Uchiha Sasuke's lap with his hands pinned to his side's and the object of their cookie-baking-stalking affection's head hovering directly above his own.
Naruto stopped squirming when Sasuke's head took a sudden, downward dip. What was he…! The blonde's eyes grew wide when one long, black bang brushed against his forehead and he all but shouted, "S-SASUKE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!"
The Uchiha's head paused for a moment in its decent before murmuring smoothly, "You said you'd kick my ass later."
Naruto blinked, scowled and promptly called the Uchiha by his favorite nicknames in alphabetical order. Twisting around on Sasuke's lap, Naruto found that the hold on his arms was suddenly less resistant and broke free. The blonde thought that Sasuke must have noticed something incredibly interesting on the ceiling, because just as he started moving around on the other boy's lap (trying to get off, mind you), Sasuke's head went back a little, and a small, "Ahh..." came from him.
Odd. Naruto looked at the ceiling himself to see what had been so fascinating, but didn't see anything. In the moment that his head was angled upward, Naruto felt another body tackle his from the side, causing them both to fall back onto the mattress. Luckily, Sasuke had a big bed.
Struggling against the hold on his right arm and left shoulder, Naruto raised his knee and shoved it hard into Sasuke's lower stomach. He grinned when he heard the pained groan and slinked out of his friend's hold. It took Sasuke more time than what would have been normal for him to recover, one pale hand staying pressed over the boy's stomach just long enough to remind Naruto about his friend's health. Of course, this was after Naruto reversed their positions so that he was the one on top. He was about to suggest that they stop, when the black eyes snapped back to attention, and Naruto felt two hands tighten around his elbows before he was pushed to the side.
So, naturally, he continued to wrestle with his rival.
Sasuke wasn't as hard to get away from as he usually was. Whenever the dark haired boy got him into a decent hold, Naruto would twist around to try and pry the pale hands apart, only to find that they had loosened at some point, and hear Sasuke make a strange, stretched out, moany version of his usual "Hn." He guessed he was hurting his stomach or something. The third time that Naruto heard that pained sound, his sense of guilt finally took hold and told him to swallow his pride and tell Sasuke that they were done for today.
Luckily for the stubborn part of his consciousness, Sasuke chose that moment to rolled to the side, snatch up one of the bed's ridiculously oversized decorative pillows (what kind of teenage boy has those, anyway?), and pounce onto his blonde opponent. Any attempt at forfeiting (for the Uchiha's sake, mind you!) was easily swallowed up by the fluffy thick pillow.
Naruto spent five seconds cursing himself for being such an easy target, before he felt a warm weight settle over his middle and began to squirm angrily. Sasuke-teme was straddling him! He could just picture the smug look on the dark haired boy's face. Naruto couldn't let that go on. Since the pillow was large enough to trap Naruto's arms as well as his head, and the Uchiha's weight was settled firmly on top of his thighs that left him with only one option: try to dismount the Uchiha.
On the other side of the offending pillow, the smirk that Naruto had envisioned was present on his rival's face. However, the smirk quickly vanished when the blonde began bucking his hips, unintentionally, against the raven haired boy's. Sasuke's hands clenched in the pillow case, pressing down harder on it to smother the blonde's ears so that he wouldn't hear the strangled moan that came when Naruto managed to mess up the movement and for a second made it feel like grinding.
To stop the damned, idiotic, adorable dobe's menstruations, Sasuke had to let go of the pillow and shift his weight so he could grab onto Naruto's hips and force them to stay still. Once Naruto felt the pressure lift, the pillow was quickly thrown aside.
Blonde hair bouncing around his head and he sat up, Naruto shouted, "Sasuke-teme! I could have suffocated! Why'd you stay like that for so long you jerk!" Naruto wasn't even finished speaking when he sprang at Sasuke again. No way was he going to let that bastard think he won!
Of course, since the offending boy didn't have the added burden of finishing a sentence to distract him, again had the advantage, and easily pinned the blonde to the bed. In the back of his mind, a little voice snickered, "Just typical, I get tackled in bed four or five times in one day, and every one of them's by Sasuke!" Naruto let out a small whimper of pain as his rival's knees dug harshly into his thighs. Sasuke's head was just above him with that arrogant smirk twisting his mouth into a mocking sm...
Naruto's eyebrows angled upward in a mixture of surprise and worry when he saw his rival's expression rapidly change from its usual I'm-better-and-you-know-it look. First his dark eyes unfocused as his attention zeroed inward, then his mouth opened a little to take in several deep, slow breathes, as if he were testing the air for taste. Then, eyes growing wide in a sudden realization, the pain in Naruto's knees disappeared as Sasuke threw himself off the bed and took off running.
Naruto managed to get himself into a sitting position with his legs hanging over the bed's edge, just in time to see the bedroom door bounce against the wall from the force used when the Uchiha pushed it out of his way. Down the hall, Sasuke's uncharacteristically loud footsteps could be heard, then the sound of another door crashing with a wall. Frowning, Naruto pushed off the bed to go and peek out into the hallway. He was able to find his teammate (after that annoying little guilty feeling came up again) by following the sounds of half smothered groans and whimpers, down the gray hall and almost back to the disgusting kitchen. The bathroom door was still open.
Poking his head into the room, Naruto saw Sasuke leaning with his hands braced on the wall, directly above the toilet, with his head hanging down between them. The toilet seat was up, and as Naruto took his first step into the tiled room, he could hear the raven haired boy's rapid breathing. Or maybe it could have been called panting. "Sasuke?" he said quietly, hand tracing along the sink, a little reluctant to go forward if Sasuke was...
Dark eyes met blue as Sasuke turned his head to stare at the blonde that was looking at him with large, anxious eyes. Naruto started to say something along the lines of, "Are you okay?" but gave it up when his teammate crumpled with a loud gurgle coming from his stomach, and showed him that even the almighty Uchiha had to bow down to the porcelain gods.
Naruto's eyes grew wide.
Uchiha Sasuke was throwing up in front of him.
The first thing that registered with the blonde, even without the help of the demon fox's enhanced senses was the smell. Naruto fought the urge to take a step back; if it were anyone else he might have just slinked out the door and waited until the pitiful whimpers and splashes died down.
But it was Uchiha Sasuke. Throwing up!
Taking a deep breath, and wrinkling his nose when he remembered the smell, the blonde haired shinobi knelt down next to the Uchiha's heaving form. There wasn't really much he could do other than watch the colors and shapes pour out of his friend's mouth in rapid spurts and commit them to memory for the next time his sensei was deciding who to send out to scrape his star pupil out of bed.
Tentatively, he reached out and positioned his hands on either side of Sasuke's sweat-beaded forehead, so not to miss a single strand, and gently pulled the hair away from his face. It wasn't really much help, but Naruto had a feeling that rubbing the boy's back was too familiar for their friendship, and he couldn't very well throw up for him, so that was all he could think to do...
And damnit, it was Uchiha Sasuke throwing up RIGHT INFRONT OF HIM.
When Sasuke's back finally stopped heaving, and he was left merely breathing heavily, Naruto reached to the side and snatched a tissue off the counter. He held it out to the exhausted boy so that Sasuke would be able to wipe his mouth before turning to stare at him, as they both knew he would. Feeling uncomfortable in the silence that fallowed, Naruto dropped his rival's hair to scratch at the back of his head, despite the fact that Sasuke was still facing the wall, and said, "Jeese, Sasuke-teme...you should have gone to a doctor weeks ago."
"Hn," Sasuke said. One pale hand reached forward to mercifully flush the toilet and send the half digested contents of the raven haired boy's stomach away. Naruto could have hugged him. Almost.
"So, bastard..." the blonde went on, "what else is wrong with you? You might as well tell me, or I'll come back later and let Sakura play doctor with you." The threat was just added as a joke for his own benefit. He really wasn't expecting an answer.
"Hn... I can't concentrate on anything, and the only thing I've been able to keep down in weeks is ramen..." Sasuke paused. "Shit... I'm turning into you."
If Sasuke were to turn his head, he would have seen his blonde teammate with a very surprised expression on his face. Did Sasuke just...? "SASUKE! You made a joke!" Sasuke flinched at the suddenly loud, excited tone. "You must be sick! You should have seen baa... chan..." Naruto's words slowed down and dropped in volume as the memory of why was sent to Sasuke's apartment in the first place came back to him. DAMNIT! I FORGOT!
Still facing the wall, Sasuke raised an eyebrow when his chatterbox teammate fell silent. Turning his head, he caught a flash of an orange clad knee, before he was suddenly bodily lifted into the air. The words, "We gotta go NOW!" were spoken loudly next to his ear. Naruto apparently thought that his sense of hearing was still hunched over the toilet bowl, while his body was being carried bridal style out of his bathroom and down the hallway.
"Dobe, what-"
"What time is it? Baa-chan's gonna kill me if we're late! Where's your damn clock!"
Sasuke flinched again at the loud yelling, and unthinkingly pointed to a place above his front door. Naruto read the numbers off the clock, let out another loud, vocal form of communication that his passenger couldn't understand, and promptly tried to run out the door, only to find that it was still chained shut and that opening it was going to be very difficult while holding Sasuke.
"Er...Sasuke, could you...?"
Sasuke figured, from what the blonde's babbling could tell him, that there actually was a reason for the dobe's appearance outside his door, other than an annoyed sensei and rabid, concerned fangirl. Squirming EVER so slightly in Naruto's hold, he undid the locks and opened the door, saying in a deadpan voice, "I can walk dobe."
"No, you can't, bastard! We're in a hurry, and we can't waste time waiting for you to puke your guts out every five minutes!"
The old lady that lived across the hall from Sasuke just so happened to chose that moment to open her door. Naruto was well aware of her staring as he rushed right past her and down the hall. It was kind of... strange to see a boy carrying another boy like that, but throwing Sasuke over his shoulder was probably just going to upset his stomach, and he'd be damned before anyone saw him running around in public with the Uchiha heir riding piggy-back.
Turning into the elevator (Sasuke having snapped that his didn't trust the klutz to carry him down the stairs, whether he was in a hurry or not), Naruto kept his attention mostly on trying to think of a good excuse for being late. 'I got distracted wrestling with Sasuke in bed'? That might have worked for ero-sensei... 'Kakashi's rubbing off on me'? That might work better...
He noticed when he felt Sasuke's struggles finally stop when he gave up trying to get away from him. When the elevator doors opened they went out onto the street, and completely ignoring the fact that if walking would be enough to upset the Uchiha heir's stomach, than being lunged around while the blonde jumped from building to building most certainly would, Naruto sent chakra into his feet and went up to travel more quickly over the rooftops.
Sasuke nestled his head into the junction between Naruto's neck and shoulder, winding his pale arms around him to keep from falling during the jumps. Naruto didn't think anything about it, other than the possibility of making a comment later about how girly Sasu-chan was being. For the moment however, he just tightened his hold on his teammate and continued to jump steadily towards the hospital, completely missing the ghost of a smile on Sasuke's lips.
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A/N:
Hey everyone, look! Yoai hints! What are those doing in this story?
In Responce to Ly Mizukage:
>. Sorry I didn't get your kiss in this chapter. It's coming though. Soon. Very soon.
Sorry Sassy didn't find out about his plan's little backfire, but I honestly lost track of how long I was making the chapter (I write on WordPad, and that doesn't tell you how many pages you write). When I first started this story, I though that I would be done in maybe twelve chapters, but this is the second time I've had to chop a chapter in half! Damn my wordy nature!
I would like to thank my beta right now, the email she sent me when she finished lookin over this chapter really cheered me up when I was having a bad day. If I knew where she lived, I'd go out and give her a big hug, instead I'm going to settle for telling everyone who reads this author's note to go read her stories. She's written a very good ShikaKiba drabble that she let me read, and a NaruIno if you liek het stories.